Seven Days
by MugetsuPipefox
Summary: There's something weird about Roxas and Xion. Something involving the guys in the black coats. Hayner, Pence, and Olette decide it's time they got to the bottom of it. (Post KH3. Part 6 of the Seasalt Fam series)
1. Chapter 1

**We're back on the angst train, lads!**

**PTSD warnings, as always (tho mostly in the second chapter). If you haven't read the earlier parts of this series, all you need to know is that, post KH3, the sea-salt fam move to Twilight Town and they have... issues... because Nomura was like 'lol time for suffering'**

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* * *

Twilight Town was a weird place. It always had been, and Hayner suspected it always would be. It had its own Seven Wonders (Eight, if he counted that one rumour about the clock tower), and even though their school project had revealed them all to have very non-supernatural explanations, it didn't change the fact that they existed, or that everyone in town had been ready to believe them and move on without even bothering to investigate.

Twilight Town was just like that.

And then the shadow monsters had turned up, closely followed by the squiggly things.

The townspeople had initially been a little freaked out, what with the whole heart-eating thing they had going on, but it hadn't taken long before it became just another one of Twilight Town's little day-to-day oddities. Shadow monsters chasing you down Market Street was more of an unavoidable inconvenience than anything, and the squiggly things were more or less happy to be left to jiggle their way around undisturbed; at worst, they'd play pranks more befitting little kids than monsters. They'd stolen a packet of markers right out of Hayner's hand once, and he'd ended up chasing them all the way to the station before he'd lost them.

The _really_ weird stuff hadn't started until the day Sora first walked into the Usual Spot. He'd been accompanied by a talking dog and a giant duck (that could also talk, but not in any language that Hayner understood). Both of them were fully clothed. But that wasn't even the weirdest thing.

Sora fought the monsters. Both types – the shadows _and_ the annoying squiggly things – and both types were drawn to him in a way they hadn't been to anyone else. Even the squiggly things, usually mostly docile (if excitable), swarmed to him. But all he had to do was smack them with a giant key he summoned out of literal thin air, and that was that.

And that _still_ wasn't the weirdest part.

No, the weirdest part was that Hayner hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he _knew_ him.

There was something about Sora that was familiar in a way that made his heart ache, even though he was positive he'd never seen the guy before in his life. And when he'd later mentioned it offhandedly to Pence and Olette, he'd been surprised to find that they'd felt the same thing. They had known Sora before they'd met him. And given how Sora had cried when he'd boarded the train at the end of his first visit, he'd known them, too.

In the flurry of Enhanced Twilight Town Weirdness™ that had come after – Kairi's appearance and subsequent kidnapping at Axel's hands, the discovery of a second Twilight Town, Sora disappearing into the other Twilight Town and never coming back out – they'd ended up more or less forgetting about it. By then, Sora was familiar enough that they'd been more focused on the present when he was around than the feeling of a _before_. And it wasn't until later, when Sora had randomly popped up again to save them from a tornado of shadows, that Hayner had remembered what he'd felt the first time.

Except this time Sora wasn't the cause.

"I'm looking for Roxas," Sora had told them, and passed them a photo.

Hayner had taken one look at the blond boy standing with them outside the mansion – a boy with a face so similar to Sora's that they could have been twins – and thought, _Oh._

It wasn't Sora he'd found familiar, it was just that he'd seen his face and somehow, without even knowing it, thought of Roxas.

Roxas, who was missing – _lost_, Sora had explained. Roxas, who had lived in the other Twilight Town. The ache Hayner had been feeling intensified now that he could identify its cause, and he'd inexplicably found himself willing to do just about anything to help Sora find him.

It wasn't like Hayner to warm up to someone so quickly. He was always suspicious of strangers at first. But Roxas felt like a childhood friend that he'd remembered after years of having forgotten, and he was unsurprised to learn that Pence and Olette shared the sentiment.

So they'd searched. They'd hacked into the computer in the Old Mansion's basement, and talked with some guy called Ienzo through Sora's phone. They'd even confronted more of the creepy guys in the black coats, going so far as to attack one and kidnap the other purely because he'd mentioned Roxas' name. In the end, the guy hadn't told them much – another coat guy had turned up and he'd left with him – but it was the closest thing they'd had to a lead.

Sora didn't come back that time, and after the coat guys had gone again, they hadn't managed to find anything else. But they hadn't given up.

And then, barely a few days later, Roxas was just... there. Standing near the top of Market Street with a girl who looked like Kairi.

All that time searching, all the dead ends, and Roxas had found himself. And seeing him in person, talking to him, Hayner had felt something like a missing piece slot neatly into place.

It _should_ have been the end of just another weird saga in their lives. They'd found Roxas, and Hayner would normally have been willing to just brush off the still unexplained circumstances that revolved around him – who he was, how he'd gotten there, why they felt like they knew him – out of satisfaction that he was _there_. He _would _have. If not for Roxas himself.

Roxas – and Xion, too – was weird. The kind of weird that made them fit in perfectly in Twilight Town, but it was also the kind that made Hayner worry.

Roxas and Xion were normal kids, except for when they weren't.

It was little things – things that he might not have even noticed if not for how many of them there were, and if not for how the two of them had come into their lives. Sometimes they'd be talking about normal, boring things, and Hayner could _see_ confusion settle on their faces. They asked a lot of questions, too, usually about things that they should have already known. And they had almost no concept of idioms or figures of speech. They took everything literally.

But more than that, whatever had brought them here had left its mark.

Hayner had noticed it in Roxas first, when they'd first found him on Market Street. They'd been excited, talking about how happy they were to see him, and asking where he'd been and how he'd gotten there. And Roxas had frozen, looking panicked, until Xion had put her hand on his shoulder, and Axel had turned up.

It had happened a few times since then, but Roxas always tried not to draw attention to himself when it did. It was always random, unconnected things, like the clock tower, or an offer of ice cream. Pence had mentioned the mansion once, when they'd been explaining how they'd been looking for him, and Roxas had curled his hands so tightly that Hayner had expected to hear his bones cracking.

Xion was more subtle. So far, Hayner had only noticed two things. One was Station Plaza. The first time they'd tried to pass through with her, she'd refused to leave the station, and Roxas had taken one look at her teary eyes and made an excuse for them. After that, Hayner, Pence, and Olette had made a point of avoiding the Plaza when they could when she was with them, but on the rare occasion that they did have to, Xion would always shut her eyes and let whoever she was with guide her through.

The other was stranger. It wasn't often, and less as time went on, but sometimes Hayner would catch her deliberately going out of her way to avoid her reflection. She would turn her back on windows, or go the long way to avoid them entirely. He'd been to their house a few times, and on at least one of those occasions, the bathroom mirror had had a sheet covering it.

He didn't know Xion's story – who she was or where she'd come from – and he'd respected her privacy enough to not push for an explanation. But he did know a little about Roxas, from what Sora had told them.

Roxas had lived in the other Twilight Town – the Twilight Town that existed within the computer in the mansion's basement. Did that mean he was a program? Or had he entered that Twilight Town the same way Sora had? Hayner didn't know, and he hadn't seen that world, so he didn't know if Roxas' aversion to the mansion or the clock tower was because of the places themselves, or if there was something more going on.

And then there were Axel and Isa. Hayner didn't know anything about Isa, but Axel was one of those creepy guys in black. Roxas and Xion had vouched for him – called him their _best friend,_ of all things – but that didn't change what Hayner already knew. Axel had kidnapped Kairi, could summon portals out of literal shadows, and was almost definitely working with the other coat-wearing weirdos who had turned up around town at one point or another.

And now he was Roxas and Xion's guardian. As if that could possibly be a good idea that Hayner should not be at all worried about. Maybe Axel genuinely cared about them. Maybe he was just a really good actor. Hayner didn't know. But Roxas and Xion obviously cared about him, and Hayner cared about _them_ enough to keep his mouth shut about it.

Until a week before the end of vacation.

They'd been sitting in the Usual Spot, and Hayner had remembered the date and complained that they only had seven days left until the new school term.

Roxas, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with him, had tensed so suddenly it was like someone had replaced him with a statue. When Hayner had turned to him, it was to find him holding his knees in a white-knuckled grip, face pale, and eyes a thousand miles away. Across from them, sitting on a crate with Olette, Xion's gaze had snapped to him like she'd been slapped.

Hayner didn't know what it was about what he'd said that had made Roxas panic, but _something _clearly had, and remembering that physical contact usually helped, he'd automatically flung himself over Roxas' lap as dramatically as he could with a lament about Seifer likely being back in time for the new semester. Roxas had relaxed, even if marginally, and shoved him off, and Hayner had called it a win.

But then Roxas had gone home early, and the next day neither he nor Xion turned up at the Usual Spot. This in itself wasn't overly unusual – they'd long since been dividing their time between the three of them and Axel – and even if Hayner couldn't understand why they'd want to, he wasn't about to stop them.

That morning, Pence saw a portal closing – the kind Axel and the other coat guys had used. They'd stayed on alert for the rest of the day, but there'd been no sign of anyone suspicious.

The day after that, Roxas and Xion were back as if nothing had ever happened. The Struggle tournament was fast approaching, and Hayner had planned to spend the day practicing. He'd lost last year, but this year he was determined to win that trophy.

"What's Struggle?" Xion asked after he'd announced as much.

"It's a game," Roxas, surprisingly, was the one to answer. "Each person has to wear a helmet and vest covered in little balls, and you use bats to try and knock them off your opponent and stick them to your own. The person with the most at the end of the time limit wins."

Xion tilted her head in consideration. "Like the endurance tests in the Hall of Empty Melodies?"

"The hall of _what?_" Pence said.

"More like the Coliseum," Roxas replied, ignoring him.

"Have you played before?" Olette asked excitedly. She always helped Hayner practice, but she didn't take it as seriously as he did. It would be nice to have someone as competitive as him to train with who _wasn't_ Seifer.

But Roxas immediately grew uneasy at the question. "Um," he said. "Yeah." He didn't sound very sure.

"Dude!" Hayner tossed one of the Struggle bats to him, and he automatically caught it. "Yes! Train with me!"

Roxas hesitated, but when Xion, Olette, and Pence offered their own encouragement, he went to grab the equipment they kept stored in the gap between the wall and the entrance to the Usual Spot. Hayner didn't remember having told him where it was.

A few minutes later they were standing opposite each other in the Sandlot, the other three crowding one of the nearby benches. Hayner grinned, twirling his bat around in a loose circle. Roxas shifted his feet slightly, but otherwise didn't move. He looked nervous.

"Do you want me to go easy on you?" Hayner took pity on him.

Something steely settled in Roxas' gaze. "Only if you want to lose."

That was more like it!

"Ready?" Olette called from where she was standing on the bench with the timer. "Start!"

Hayner lunged forward, already swinging. Roxas stepped to the side like he'd seen him coming from miles away, and a solid thwack to Hayner's back had the first of the balls bouncing off. In a flash, Roxas _dodge rolled_ over them like some kind of video game character, letting the weight of his body attach them to his own vest without the need to waste time with his hands.

And wow, okay, maybe Hayner had underestimated him a little.

He managed to block Roxas' next blow, but his counterattack missed when Roxas easily ducked under it.

"Geez! What are you, some kind of ninja?!" Hayner cried when Roxas managed to dodge _again_.

Roxas laughed. "I'm higher ranked than the ninjas."

"Oh, so, what? You're, like, a Super Ninja?"

"Samurai would be closer," Xion said from their left.

"Not really," Roxas turned to her, and Hayner used the distraction to bonk him on the head. It only set loose two balls, and Roxas recovered quick enough to grab them both back before Hayner could take more than a step towards them.

"Damn, how are you so good at this?" Hayner doubted even Seifer would be able to beat him, let alone Setzer. "Hey, you should enter the tournament! Then no matter who wins we can share the prize!"

Roxas staggered, tripping over nothing, and Hayner's next hit struck him right in the nose. He straightened quickly, one hand pressed against his face, and the other holding his bat loosely.

"Oh crap, sorry! Are you okay?" Hayner, game forgotten, reached out as if to pry Roxas' hand away. He hadn't expected that blow to hit, so he'd put a little less force into it than he normally would have, but he knew from personal experience what a Struggle bat to the face felt like.

"Fine," Roxas immediately replied. He didn't sound fine, but when he pulled his hand away briefly, there wasn't any blood. He ambled over to where the others had fallen silent, and passed first his bat, and then helmet and vest to Xion. "I'm gonna... run to the bathroom. Avenge me."

He didn't come back. And despite the absolute thrashing Xion gave him (despite claims that it was her first time playing), Hayner didn't fail to notice.

Later, Olette went off with Xion (the two having plans to spend the afternoon redecorating Xion's room), and he made her promise to keep an eye out for Roxas.

He and Pence spent the next few hours in the Usual Spot, going through their sizeable comic book collection. When Olette met up with them again, one look at her face had them both tossing their comics aside before she'd even fully made it through the doorway.

"Olette?" Pence asked.

Her expression was twisted, brows deeply furrowed. Hayner had seen it on her enough times to know what it meant. Something was wrong, but not with her.

"Xion has a black coat."

Hayner and Pence stared at her. Whatever he'd been preparing for her to say, that had not been it. "What?"

"I was helping her rearrange her room, and her wardrobe was open," Olette explained as she flopped down on the couch between them. "She has one of those black coats; _exactly_ like the ones those guys were wearing."

A black coat. Like Axel. Like the guys from the mansion. Hayner peered over her head at Pence, only to see his own confusion reflected on his friend's face. Why would Xion have a coat?

"And it got me thinking about all the people in coats we've seen," Olette continued. "Do you remember last year when we were playing Grandstander in the Sandlot, and there was that guy watching us?"

Hayner stared at the wall behind her as he tried to think back to the specific time she was referring to. They'd played Grandstander a lot last summer, though only a few times in the Sandlot, given that it was Seifer's favourite haunt. On Olette's other side, Pence pounded his fist into his palm in realisation.

"The kid in the black coat, right?" he said. "He smashed Hayner's record on his first try!"

Oh. Yeah, he remembered that. He was sure he'd seen that kid around before then, but only in passing. "Beginner's luck," Hayner waved off Pence's comment. But he was right. That guy had beaten his record like it was _nothing_.

Olette nodded empathically. "I thought it was weird, cause, you know, it was summer, and it must've been hot wearing a coat like that. But it _is_ Twilight Town."

Hayner and Pence hummed in agreement. Twilight Town really was just like that.

"Do you guys remember what he looked like?"

Hayner closed his eyes and tried to picture him in his head. There had definitely been that black coat – back then they hadn't even thought anything of it. But what about his face? Blond hair, maybe? A bit like...

"Roxas," he realised, something a little like dread settling in his chest. "It was Roxas."

Xion had a black coat. So did Roxas. And Axel, who was their guardian.

"Yeah," Olette agreed, matching his wide-eyed shock with calmness that could only come from having had time to process it.

Pence tapped his chin, and squinted. "I saw him before that, I think. Back when we were doing the research project on the Seven Wonders."

"Really? Where?"

"In the tunnels. I was looking into the moaning tunnel one, and he was there with... Axel. It was definitely Axel. They said they were looking for someone."

So whoever those creepy coat guys were, Roxas and Xion were involved somehow. Roxas, who was the spitting image of Sora, known enemy of the coat guys. And Xion, who looked _exactly_ like the girl Axel had kidnapped.

It was barely a month ago that the creepy coat guys were still crawling around. And just yesterday Pence had seen one of the portals they used to sneak around. What if they were back? Were Roxas and Xion in danger?

And what did they really know about Xion, anyway? Sora had been looking for _Roxas_. He hadn't even mentioned Xion. Roxas was vouched for – if not by the feeling that he _belonged_ with them, then definitely by the fact that he'd been friends with the alternate versions of them – but what about Xion? Hayner liked her, even if initially only because Roxas did, but Roxas also liked Axel.

Maybe Roxas just had terrible taste in friends.

Or maybe there was something else going on.

"I know we already finished our research project," Hayner started slowly, "but I think we'd better do another one."

* * *

They started with a list.

Pence had found some scrap paper on one of the barrels in the Usual Spot, and had become their self-appointed scribe as they parsed out what they already knew. In the end, it wasn't much. But what they did know painted a very concerning picture.

1\. Other worlds exist

2\. There is a digital version of Twilight Town in the computer in the Old Mansion

3\. Roxas used to live in the digital Twilight Town

4\. The creepy coat guys have been spotted at the mansion

5\. The creepy coat guys have been known for kidnapping

6\. Axel is one of the coat guys (possibly also Isa?)

7\. Xion and Roxas also have coats

8\. Coat Guy Known Abilities:

_ a. _Make spooky portal

_ b. _Control squiggly things

9\. Roxas and Xion live with Axel and Isa instead of relatives – never mentioned family

10\. Roxas and Xion look like Sora and Kairi

11\. Sora said Roxas was 'lost'

12\. Roxas and Xion have anxiety

13\. Roxas and Xion are weirdly ignorant

For a long moment, they did little more than stare at the list they'd ended up with. It was really starting to push the limits of what could count as normal Twilight Town Nonsense. Pence put down his pen with a resolute nod.

"So I'm thinking cult," he said. "But, like, a dark magic sort of cult."

Hayner and Olette were quick to agree.

"Cult."

"Definitely a cult."

They'd had talking animals, virtual worlds, and giant magical keys. At this point, a cult was one of the more normal things. And it did explain a lot: the coats, the kidnappings, Roxas and Xion's behaviour.

But it also increased Hayner's concerns; everyone knew you couldn't just leave a cult. They were an in-it-for-life kind of deal. So what did that mean for Roxas and Xion? Or even Axel and Isa? Were they still part of it? Or had they left? And if it _was_ the latter, then what were the chances that someone was going to come after them?

"So what do we do?" Olette voiced the question they'd all been thinking.

Hayner had already made up his mind. "We make sure that Roxas and Xion aren't going to get kidnapped the way Kairi was."

Maybe they'd only really known them for a short while, and maybe that weird feeling of familiarity Hayner had experienced when he'd first seen the photo of Roxas was just because of a brief meeting with him a year ago. But they were his friends, and he wasn't going to let them disappear. Not when they'd only _just_ found Roxas again. Not while he lived and breathed.

"How?"

"We could find their hideout and spy on them?"

"Track down the cult?" Pence asked, surprised.

"Did you forget what happened last time?" Olette countered. "If it wasn't for those squiggly things, you would have been toast!"

Right. The dark magic part. So far, nothing they'd tried had even been able to hit the squiggly things – only Sora's magic key. Hayner supposed they could ask Sora for help, but Roxas and Xion always seemed to know when he was around, and he wasn't about to risk them getting involved if he could help it. No, they had to do this on their own.

"Then we don't let them spot us," he said. "We don't have to fight them." No matter how much he wanted to. "We just have to make sure they're not planning on going after Roxas and Xion."

Olette pursed her lips. She still wasn't convinced this was a good idea – which, you know, fair.

"We can worry about what we're gonna do later," Pence cut in. "For now we should probably focus on how we're going to find them in the first place."

They lapsed into silence. That was the one major hitch in the plan. Hayner knew they liked to hang out around the mansion, but the three of them had been there enough times to know that it wasn't their base.

"The squiggly things!" Olette cried, slapping her palms against her thighs. "If we can find one, we can follow it back to the coat guys!"

Perfect! Except,

"Any idea where to find a squiggly thing?"

* * *

In hindsight, they probably should have known that catching a squiggly thing was easier said than done. The squiggly things and the shadow monsters had both taken to only appearing in places where there weren't many people since Sora had taken out that big swarm, so Hayner, Pence, and Olette had headed first to the tunnels, and steadily made their way through to the woods.

The shadow monsters were _everywhere_. Hayner felt like his every step was being watched. More than once the monsters had jumped out at them from seemingly nowhere. Armed with Struggle bats, they'd done their best to fight them off, but it was usually only enough to buy them an opening to escape. The only blunt-force trauma that did anything to them, apparently, was from giant magical keys.

The Old Mansion, when they'd finally reached it, had offered even more shadow monsters. But not a _single_ squiggly thing.

The three of them sat with their backs against the brick wall, nets and bats lying in the grass beside them. A month ago, the squiggly things had been almost as common as the shadow monsters. Now they were an endangered species.

Hayner kicked a rock by his shoe, and watched as it bounced a few feet away. It'd been at least two hours, and they were no closer to answers than when they'd started.

"Any ideas?" Olette asked, leaning her head back.

Pence shrugged. "We could just ask Roxas and Xion."

Hayner had already thought of that. It was probably the quickest way, assuming Roxas and Xion were even willing to talk about it. "Isn't it the first rule of a cult not to talk about the cult?"

Pence hummed.

"It's worth a try, though, right?" Olette pulled up a few blades of grass and started tearing them into tiny pieces.

Something white darted across Hayner's peripheral vision. He was on his feet in an instant, net in one hand and Struggle bat in the other.

He pointed with the bat. "Squiggly thing!"

The squiggly thing paused at the outburst, and turned its head towards them. It took one look at Hayner, now joined by Pence and Olette, and wriggled at full speed towards the mansion.

"Catch it!" Hayner yelled, and the three of them chased after it.

It was heading straight for the door. For a split second, Hayner was convinced they'd trapped it – until it phased right through the wood in a pulse of dark light. (And how was that even possible? Light was _light_.)

They didn't slow down, barrelling through the unlocked doors in time to see their target slithering up the stairs.

"There!" Pence cried needlessly, and they were off again.

The squiggly thing reached the landing and dove left, in the opposite direction of the room leading to the basement. Hayner, Pence, and Olette skidded around the corner, not pausing at all as they burst through the doorway of the room it had escaped into.

They'd caught up to it. There was nowhere else to go. Fast as lightning, Olette swung her net over its head.

"Yes!"

The squiggly thing vanished into the floor as easily as it had gone through the door.

"No!"

"Damn!" Olette puffed. How were they supposed to catch something that could go through walls?

"I can't believe this!" Hayner whined. They'd _had_ it!

"Uh, guys?"

Olette sagged against the door frame with a sigh. "We're gonna need something better than a net, I think."

"Guys?"

"Do they even _make_ things that can catch ghosts?" Hayner huffed. He'd seen cartoons where they used vacuum cleaners, but something told him that wasn't going to work, either.

"Guys!"

"Huh?" Hayner glanced over at Pence. "You say something?"

But Pence had his eyes fixed on something further into the room. "Look."

Hayner turned, finally paying attention to the room they'd barged into. It was completely different from the rest of the mansion. It wasn't run down or coated in a thick layer of dust. And everything – walls, floor, curtains, _furniture_ – was white.

But what really caught his attention, what Pence had already seen, were the pictures.

There were at least two dozen of them, pinned randomly to the walls in clusters. They were all drawn in crayon, and most likely by the same person. Most of them were of places, but there were several with people, too.

The three of them crept further into the room, squiggly thing momentarily forgotten in the face of this new discovery.

Hayner didn't recognise any of the places. An unfamiliar beach turned up more than once, but there was also a library, and several other freaky-looking places.

"Is that Sora?" Olette, on his left, breathed.

She reached out to touch one of the drawings. If not for the tell-tale hair, and the distinct forms of Donald and Goofy on either side, Hayner probably wouldn't have recognised who it was supposed to be, but Olette was right. That was definitely Sora.

Together, they made their way around the room, trying to make sense of what they were seeing. Sora turned up in a few more of the drawings, and in one of them he was standing hand-in-hand with a black-coated figure.

Roxas. It had to be. If the mess of blond hair didn't give it away, the foreknowledge that Sora knew Roxas from before would have been enough to guess.

"Here, too," Pence said, and pointed to another picture. More black-coated figures, but only the two in the foreground had any distinguishing features. One was clearly Roxas. The other...

"Axel," Hayner narrowed his eyes. "It's gotta be." No one else had hair as crazy as that.

"He's in this one too," Pence drew their attention to one a little further down, this time just Axel by himself.

"What do you think it means?" Olette asked quietly.

"More importantly," Hayner said, "who drew them?"

* * *

They ended up taking all the pictures back with them to the Usual Spot, where they set them on top of a crate alongside the list. The two that bothered Hayner the most were the ones that had Roxas in them. What did it mean? Obviously one of them was just proof that Roxas was part of the cult, too, but what about the other one? They'd already known that Roxas and Sora knew each other – hell, they'd found out about Roxas _because_ of Sora. But what was the connection? The drawing of them holding hands implied more than just friends.

"Do you think they could be brothers?" Olette asked, noting the picture that Hayner had been staring at intently.

"They look like they could be twins," Pence agreed. "Aren't they the same age?"

Hayner was inclined to believe it, too. Unfortunately, while it answered one question, it also asked several more. "Okay, so say they're twins," he started slowly, drawing Pence and Olette's attention to him. "Roxas was in the cult, right? And Sora was _fighting_ the cult. How does that work? He didn't even mention Roxas when he was looking for Kairi."

"Maybe he didn't know Roxas was in the cult then?" Olette theorised. "Maybe he only found out when he fought them?"

Pence shook his head, leaning forward like he was about to divulge a dark secret. "But remember what he said? Roxas lived in the other Twilight Town."

"Do you think they met there, then? When Sora went in?"

"But that doesn't make any sense if they're twins," Hayner countered.

"Unless," Pence said, "they were separated."

"What are you saying?" Olette frowned.

"Maybe the cult kidnapped him. Maybe their base is in the other Twilight Town."

Olette and Hayner stared at him.

Despite how ridiculous it sounded, it did make a lot of sense; if nothing else, it definitely answered a lot of Hayner's questions. They already knew the cult guys were prone to kidnapping – Axel had taken Kairi right in front of them, and that weird guy they'd 'rescued' from the Old Mansion had had some serious kidnap-ee vibes. It really wasn't out of the realm of possibility that they'd done the same to Roxas – and Xion. And if they'd taken them when they were really little, it also explained why the two of them were so ignorant about things that should have been general knowledge. And why Sora hadn't mentioned Roxas.

Having their base be in the digital Twilight Town also made an alarming amount of sense. Why else would they hang around the mansion so much? And why would Sora feel the need to enter it, too? They knew that other worlds existed because of Sora, but what were the chances of an entrance to a _real_ world being inside a fake one? It made more sense for the other Twilight Town to be the base itself.

Hayner glanced at Olette. From her expression, she was having a similar line of thought. Her eyes dropped back down to the list, then briefly over the drawings again. Her frown became more pronounced.

"Sora's been back since Roxas turned up," she said, troubled. "He was fighting the coat guys, right? Shouldn't he know that Axel and Isa are part of the cult? Why would he just leave Roxas with them?"

"Maybe the cult's been disbanded?" Hayner suggested. And if Roxas was part of it, then he probably did have friends there – like Xion. And like Axel, though Hayner still didn't like it. "It might explain why the squiggly things have disappeared."

"But don't you think it's strange that he went to all that effort of looking for Roxas, and then only visited once despite Roxas having been back for over a month now?"

The implication that Sora might be in on it, somehow, was more than a little unsettling.

Pence crossed his arms. "Let's go back to the mansion tomorrow. If we hack into the computer, we might be able to find more information. Maybe we can even get the transporter working again."

Hayner nodded his agreement. If they could get into the digital Twilight Town the way Sora had, they would be able to see for themselves if the cult really was still active or not. And maybe find some answers.

* * *

Hayner and Olette watched impatiently over Pence's shoulders as he typed away at the computer. He couldn't speak for Olette, but whatever Pence was doing almost looked harder than it was worth; the way Pence kept muttering under his breath only solidified the thought in his mind.

"So can you get in or not?" Hayner pressed after another minute with nothing obvious to show for it.

"Yes," Pence said. "Maybe. I don't know?"

Hayner scowled at him. "Well?"

"Whoever set up the protections on here did a really good job. I can probably get around them but I'll have to find a way through the firewall first. It's gonna take a while."

Hayner threw his head back with a groan. Just what they needed: more delays. For all they knew, the coat guys could be up to something fishy while they were wasting time trying to figure it all out. And okay, yeah, maybe nothing had happened since Roxas and Xion had turned up but that didn't mean nothing _would_.

"Be patient, Hayner," Olette rolled her eyes at him. "Pence is doing his best. He'll get it eventually."

"And how long till 'eventually'?"

"Uhhh..." Pence leaned in closer to the screen. "About five minutes. I found a way in."

Well, five minutes was definitely better than five hours. Even if it did still feel like too long.

True to his word, five minutes later saw them pressed tightly together, gazes fixed on the main screen, as Pence scrolled through file after file. Some of them were research notes, but there were also schematics, plans, reports...

"This is insane," Pence breathed.

"The other Twilight Town is... a prison?" Hayner's grip on the chair's armrest tightened. According to this, it had been made specifically to '_contain_' Roxas. But why? What had he done that made someone want to lock him up?

"They messed with his head," Pence added, horrified. "Made him think he'd always lived there."

Olette, one hand covering her mouth, pointed at another file labelled 'Restoration Progress'. Pence opened it.

"What the hell is this?" Hayner asked after a moment of silence in which they'd each skimmed over the file's contents. It mentioned someone called Naminé, and something about Sora. Memories? _Sora's _memories?

"I think..." Pence began slowly, voice nearly a whisper, "I think something happened to Sora? And this Naminé person and whoever wrote these reports were trying to help him get better?"

"But what does that have to do with Roxas?!"

"There are more reports here," Pence closed the one that was open and brought up a folder of reports labelled 1 through 13. They made little sense of the first two – experiments? Darkness of the heart? – and the third was much the same, except for one line that made Hayner freeze.

_Even, Ienzo, Braig, Dilan, and Aeleus...  
They have ceased to be human._

Most of the names meant nothing to him. Except Ienzo. They _knew_ Ienzo.

And what did that mean, 'ceased to be human'? Was it just flowery language or was it literal? Hayner turned his wide-eyed gaze on his friends.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

Olette was biting her lip so hard he expected it would bleed. Neither of them said anything, and Pence clicked on the next report in the folder.

This one was about the shadows, Hayner quickly realised. Heartless, the author called them. A weird name, he thought, for creatures that were supposed to be formed from hearts.

Then, in report number seven, something called Nobodies.

"Do you think it could be the squiggly things?" Olette asked, her quiet voice almost too loud in the heavy silence that had settled over them.

The 'body' and 'soul' left behind from a Heartless... Then...

"Those things were people," Pence said, before the thought had even finished forming in Hayner's mind. "The squiggly things were _people_."

"Organization XIII," Hayner read aloud. An impossible thought niggled its way into his head. "The cult?"

Olette stared back at him with haunted eyes. "Then that means..."

"Roxas, Xion, Axel, Isa... all of them..." Pence shook his head.

"Squiggly things," Hayner finished. "Nobodies." _Not human_.

Numbly, they continued down the list of reports.

Naminé's name came up again. Kairi's not-quite-a-Nobody, the author called her. Naminé, who could apparently alter people's memories. Had altered Roxas', according to that other report they'd seen. Organization XIII had gotten her too, only for her to be eventually rescued by Sora.

Hayner immediately thought of Xion, who so strongly resembled Kairi. Was it possible that _Xion_ was Naminé? Had she just changed her name? It was impossible to tell. Not without asking.

And then there was Sora.

Report #10 was where things finally started making sense. The 'restoration' they'd discovered were for Sora's memories. Whatever had really gone down in 'Castle Oblivion', it had left Sora without his memories. Was that Naminé's doing, too? Had Organization XIII forced her to, or did she do it because she'd wanted to?

She and the author of the reports had brought Sora here, to Twilight Town's mansion, where the author had set up this exact lab.

"It says Sora became a Heartless," Pence glanced up at him. And Hayner already knew what he was thinking.

It was hard to imagine the Sora they knew ever losing his heart, or becoming one of those shadow monsters. And if he _did_, then he certainly wasn't anymore. But more than that, there was one question Hayner couldn't ignore.

"So what about _his_ Nobody?"

When the three of them met each other's eyes, Hayner knew that they all had the same suspicion. A suspicion that was blatantly confirmed in the first line of Report #12.

_Apart from Naminé, Nobodies retain their memories of their time as humans, but Sora's Nobody, Roxas, has lost Sora's memories._

Hayner let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. A large part of him hadn't fully believed it, even despite the obvious clues. Maybe, he'd thought, Roxas and Xion were an exception to the rule. Maybe they weren't Nobodies, like the rest of them. Maybe they were human.

Maybe these reports weren't even real to begin with.

_I must convert Roxas into data, and return him to Sora._

Except that it made more sense if it was true.

Hayner could feel his nails digging into the palms of his hands. If he didn't relax, he'd end up breaking the skin. But the more he read, the angrier he became. They had locked Roxas up in the other Twilight Town, and had Naminé wipe away his memories.

_I shall place Roxas in that world to live out his days..._

To die. They'd put him in there with the intention of destroying him. For Sora. For some stupid _revenge_ plot. As if Roxas was just something that could be thrown away, and not a _person_.

"I should have known it was you three."

Hayner, Pence, and Olette startled badly, whipping around at the unexpected voice.

Axel stood behind them, just in from the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall. It was a very casual pose, betrayed only by the look in his eyes, as if he was already planning how he was going to hide their bodies.

This wasn't the Axel they'd seen being freely affectionate with Roxas and Xion.

This was the Axel who had emerged from the shadows to abduct Kairi.

"Always sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong," Axel drawled, when none of them said anything. His smile was too sharp to be friendly. "Learn anything interesting?"

_Not human_, something in Hayner's mind whispered. It had never been more obvious.

"How did you know we were here?" Olette asked, with far more calm than Hayner had expected. He glanced at her, and while her face was a careful mask, he could see the way her hands were shaking.

"Ienzo," Axel shrugged, pushing away from the wall to take a step towards them. "Someone hacked into Ansem's computer. He asked me to come take a look."

From the tone of his voice, it was obvious he was trying to twist this around; make _them_ the bad guys. And for what? Because they'd been worried about their friends? Because they'd learned the truth?

Well, Hayner hadn't been scared of Axel that day he'd first appeared, and if he thought that had changed now, he was in for a surprise.

"Don't act like we're the bad guys here, _Axel_," he spat. "We know everything."

"Oh, do you now?" Axel was far more amused than the situation called for, and it only made Hayner increasingly on-edge. He'd lied about knowing everything; more than anything, they didn't know what Axel was really capable of.

"We know you're not human. And about Organization XIII."

He couldn't suppress a flinch when Axel brought his hands up to clap sarcastically.

"Wow," he smirked. "That really is the whole story right there."

He was mocking them. In the corner of his eye, Hayner caught Pence sending him a not-very-subtle side-eye, trying to get him to shut up. But this was one fight Hayner wasn't prepared to back down from. Axel was dangerous. And not just to them.

"And what are you planning to do now?" Axel continued, arms dropping to his sides. His fingers twitched like he was reaching for something.

Hayner didn't know. He hadn't really progressed beyond the discovery that his friends weren't what he thought they were. When the coat guys had been part of a _human_ cult they'd thought had abducted Roxas and Xion, their path had been easy to chart out. But now? Now he wasn't so sure.

_Humans_ with magic were one thing. Nobodies – the other halves of the shadow monsters that attacked anyone they could – were something else entirely. How was he supposed to fight something like that?

"You should know," Axel broke the strained silence, voice low, "that I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to protect them."

Hayner blinked, caught off-guard by the clear threat. For the first time since Axel had turned up, he _really_ looked at him, deeper than the threat he was presenting himself as. Axel was tense, and hunched over like he was anticipating a fight. Like a snake backed into a corner.

He was _scared_.

Hayner let out a disbelieving laugh. Olette and Pence turned to him like he was insane. Axel only grew tenser. After everything, all the suspicion, they both wanted the same thing.

"Are you stupid?" he asked, confidence returning now that he had more of the pieces. "Why do you think we're even down here? Roxas and Xion are our friends. We were trying to protect them from _you_!"

Axel stared at him for a long moment, and then seemed to sag as the fight drained out of him. Hayner thought he heard him mutter something like, "Never hear the end of it if I do anything." When he straightened up properly, the hostility was gone, leaving only a guarded wariness in its place. "And now?"

"They're our _friends_," Hayner repeated. Was he deaf as well as stupid?

"Even if they're not human?"

The not-human thing had thrown him off, Hayner would privately admit to himself. But in the long run, what did it even matter? Roxas and Xion were Roxas and Xion, no matter what they looked like or what they were. "Man, who even cares about that?"

"Donald and Goofy aren't human," Pence pointed out. "And a duck and a rat run the most popular restaurant in town."

"You guys being squiggly things is comparatively not that weird," Olette shrugged. "It's almost normal for Twilight Town."

Axel made a disbelieving sort of noise, and ran a hand through his hair. "I forgot how crazy this town was," he muttered to himself.

Hayner crossed his arms. "Are you done being dramatic now?"

"Are _you_ done sticking your nose into other people's business?"

"Not until you answer some questions."

Axel narrowed his eyes, and for a second Hayner wondered if he'd pushed too far. "You get three. One each. Then you butt-out. Deal?"

Hayner, Pence, and Olette nodded. "Deal."

Axel waved a hand. "Ask away."

"Why did you kidnap Kairi?" Olette went first, with almost no hesitation.

Axel sighed heavily, as if he'd expected this. "I was gonna use her as bait. She was never in any danger from me."

Bait? For what? Kairi had been looking for Sora, and the coat guys had been fighting Sora... Was he going to use her to lure Sora into a trap?

"Why were you fighting Sora?" Hayner asked.

Axel looked like he was seriously starting to reconsider offering them the deal. "It's... complicated. Are you asking why the _Organization_ was fighting Sora, or why _I_ was?"

Hayner bit his lip in indecision. Honestly, he wanted the answer to both. But he only got one question. "What's the difference?"

Axel glared at him. But it was a single question, and Axel _had_ promised to answer. "Technically, the Organization weren't interested in fighting him until he started becoming a threat. They just wanted to... uh, _encourage_ him into fighting the Heartless. I was trying to turn him _into_ a Heartless."

Fight the Heartless? But wasn't he already doing that? And why try and turn Sora into one? Hadn't he already been one, if Roxas existed? "Why?"

"Bzzt, nope. You already asked your question."

"Why try and turn Sora into a Heartless?" Pence asked for him, and Hayner vowed to buy him an ice cream later as thanks.

Axel crossed his arms, refusing to look at any of them. "I was trying to get Roxas back."

Back. Then the plan to sacrifice him for Sora had worked. Hayner could see some of his own anger written in the way Axel held himself. If Kairi had been bait for Sora, he wondered if it was for the Organization, or for Axel – for _Roxas_.

In the end, maybe they weren't so different. Maybe Roxas and Xion weren't delusional for calling him their best friend. If nothing else, he did genuinely care about them.

"Okay, that's it. Deal's a deal," Axel said, and any vulnerability Hayner had witnessed was once again hidden. "Now get lost. I've got things to do."

"Fine," they groaned, and started heading for the exit.

They still hadn't found what they'd been after – proof that the cult was gone for good. But at least, if it did come back, there was comfort in knowing that they had Axel on their side.


	2. Chapter 2

Job hunting, as it turned out, was harder than Isa had anticipated it was going to be. When he'd been young, before he and Lea had lost their hearts, he'd known exactly which university he'd wanted to go to, and what career he aspired for. Now, ten years on and not even being able to say he'd finished the legally required level of schooling let alone high education, that plan was well and truly out the window.

Fortunately, there were plenty of job listings – both here in Twilight Town and out in other worlds. Unfortunately, they all demanded a certain level of experience that Isa simply did not have to offer. As it was, he'd spent the better part of the morning making the most of the silence borne from all his housemates having gone out for the day to adapt his resume to an unfamiliar job market.

But, three hours in, it was becoming hard to concentrate through the pervasive feeling of being watched.

Isa glanced up from his laptop. Across the dining room, standing by the kitchen bench, was Roxas. He and Xion had gone off to spend the day with their local friends. Isa hadn't expected them back until evening. And yet here Roxas was, staring at him with such a complicated expression that Isa didn't have a hope of understanding it. Xion was nowhere in sight.

After a minute in which they only stared at each other, Isa's patience wore thin.

"Yes?" he asked.

Roxas blinked, as if coming back to himself, and his face closed off into a scowl. Isa was ready for him to leave the room without a word, and so was surprised when, instead, Roxas went and joined him at the table, albeit in the furthest possible seat. Without acknowledging Isa at all, he started fiddling with his gummiphone, and otherwise gave no further indication that he even realised Isa was still there.

And Isa, bemused but not unused to Roxas' preference to ignore him where possible, returned to his resume, already brushing it off as a strange but otherwise isolated incident.

* * *

The new school term would be starting soon. They'd yet to really discuss what they would be doing, beyond an unspoken agreement that the children would be enrolled in a school _somewhere_. Most likely, they would want to attend the local one; that way they would already have friends, and they wouldn't have to worry about sneaking around with the corridors to go between worlds, or explaining why they lived in a town that no one had ever heard of. Either that, or they would attend the school on the Destiny Islands with Sora, Riku, and Kairi. And likely also Naminé, he mused.

Lea hadn't expressed any real concerns about it, though Isa suspected on the first day he'd be as emotional as any parent dropping their toddler off for the first day of kindergarten. Isa, on the other hand, did not share his outlook.

"Their current level of education is abysmal," he told Lea that night, after Roxas and Xion had gone to bed. "They will require at least some level of tutoring before they're enrolled."

Lea glanced over at him from where he was slouched on the couch, watching an old sitcom rerun. He'd recently taken to binge-watching shows that had been on when they were teenagers that they'd never gotten to see the end of.

"They're plenty smart," he argued.

Isa would not refute that. They had both been rather slow to begin with, but they'd adapted surprisingly quickly, and before long they'd been demonstrating intelligence Saïx had not expected from them. "Being smart and being educated are not the same."

Lea, of all people, having spent an entire year answering very basic questions, should've known that.

Lea pulled a face that indicated that, yes, he did know that. "Know any good tutors?"

Fighting a smirk, Isa tilted his head and said, "Vexen appears to have done a reasonable job teaching Zexion."

Lea straightened so that he was sitting properly. "Do you want the reasons why that's a terrible idea organised alphabetically or chronologically?"

"I wasn't aware you knew the alphabet." Then, before Lea had a chance to make a comeback, "You can relax. It was a joke."

"Your sense of humour is a joke," Lea muttered.

They lapsed back into silence, broken only by the show still playing in the background and its laugh track.

"What about Ienzo?" Lea eventually said.

Isa turned back to him.

"He's probably the most educated person I can think of that, you know, is also a decent person. And I mean Zexion was kinda creepy, sure, but even then he was still kind to Roxas. And the kids like him."

It probably was one of their better options, if they didn't want to hire a stranger. The only person Isa could think of who'd be better suited was Ansem the Wise himself, but that idea didn't even need to be voiced. Ienzo was a perfectly good candidate, and being a similar age to Roxas and Xion would help them feel more at ease around him.

"I'll contact him tomorrow, while you and the children are in Neverland," Isa decided.

Lea frowned at him. "You're not coming?"

"I hardly see a need to spend the day flying around."

"Because it was Xion's turn to choose and she's never done it before."

"You say that as if it has any impact on me."

"Isa," Lea said.

"Besides," Isa continued, ignoring the expression on Lea's face, "at least one of us needs to organise the paperwork for their enrolment. You should ask them which school they wish to attend."

"Isa," Lea repeated. "Do you not want to go because you don't want to spend time with us, or because you think we don't want to spend time with _you_?"

Isa hated how easily Lea could still read him, even after all these years. Especially when he still hadn't quite adapted to this new person Lea had become. The Lea he'd grown up with had changed when he'd become Axel. The Lea in front of him now was closer to that old Lea than Axel had been (until that last year, when Roxas and Xion had come along, anyway), but there was still more than enough Axel to throw Isa off. They'd both been right that day. They'd both changed.

"I have no objections to spending time with the three of you," he said at length.

"But you think we have a problem with you?"

He knew Lea didn't. It was only because of Lea that they were sitting together now, under the same roof. And Xion had seemed to have forgiven him, or at least moved on. Roxas was... well, Roxas, and Isa never expected anything different, but even he had grown more tolerant as the weeks turned into months, even if he still didn't quite trust him.

But knowing something and actually believing it were two different things. And even now, having had it affirmed to him several times that he was wanted among them, it was hard not to feel like a third wheel sometimes.

"Don't make problems where there are none," Isa told him. A non-answer. But the truth was too complicated to explain, anyway.

"Fine," Lea said, not sounding like it was fine at all. "But you have to promise to come next time. It's my turn to choose, so you're not allowed to skip out, got it memorised?"

"Fine," Isa agreed. And they left it at that.

* * *

Two days later saw the children off with the local kids again. Or, at least, that's what they'd announced over breakfast. Just after midday, Roxas was back again, Xion nowhere in sight, and that same convoluted expression on his face as before.

"You're back early," Isa commented when all Roxas did was stand in the doorway and stare.

He immediately looked away. "I know," he said curtly, but any attempts at indifference were ruined by the fact that he was still loitering just outside Isa's bedroom door.

"Did you need something?"

"No."

Isa stared at him, at a loss. He could think of nothing that would prompt Roxas to act like this, especially with Isa, of all people. "If you're looking for Lea, he's downstairs."

He'd been asleep on the couch, last Isa had seen, and was never opposed to one of them joining him. And Roxas _did_ look tired.

"I know," Roxas repeated.

What was a polite way of asking what, then, Roxas could possibly want from him? They were always more or less civil with each other in the absence of any real fondness, but this was definitely beyond the bounds of their mutual unspoken truce.

"What are you doing?" Roxas asked after a moment.

Isa glanced down at the paperwork spread out across the desk beside his laptop. "I'm assisting Ienzo with creating the documents you, Xion, and Naminé will need to attend school." It had been Ienzo's suggestion to include Naminé in their preparations. Isa had had no objections.

Roxas grimaced, as if Isa had told him he was preparing missions for them again. "Can we... do something else?"

'We'? Frowning, Isa swivelled his chair around to properly face him. "Did you have something in mind?"

Roxas shrugged, shifting awkwardly. "Something inside?"

Isa considered him for a long moment. There was very clearly something wrong, and it reminded him strongly of the way Xion had reacted when he'd found her outside Station Plaza that time. Evasive. Not wanting Isa to pry.

"The dishes require washing," Isa started slowly, unable to think of anything else.

He belatedly realised that the prospect of chores would likely remind him how much he disliked Isa's company, and send him away to be antsy where no one could keep an eye on him, but Roxas actually _relaxed_ at the suggestion.

"I'll dry?"

Yes, there was definitely something not right here. And it only became more pronounced when, later that afternoon, Xion returned home with Olette, and instead of joining them or heading out to find the other two boys like he normally might, Roxas requested to help with the remaining chores, and then, even after Olette had gone, to assist in preparing dinner, despite it still being early.

The memory of the night Roxas and Axel had attempted to cook for them flashed before his mind's eye. "Perhaps we should get takeout."

* * *

The Bistro was always busy in the evenings, and tonight was no exception. Thankfully, Isa had had enough sense to phone ahead with their order, so it was ready by the time he and Roxas walked the distance between Sunset Terrace and Tram Common (and without a single complaint that the corridors were faster). They had exchanged few words, with Isa spending most of the time trying to find a way to ask what was wrong without outright asking, and Roxas avoiding his eye.

They collected and paid for their food without issue, but as Isa turned to head back up Market Street, the distinct absence of following footsteps gave him pause.

When he glanced back over his shoulder, it was to find Roxas still standing at the top of the steps leading to the Bistro's courtyard, staring out towards the town wall.

"What is it?" he called.

Roxas turned back to him briefly. "What are they doing?"

Isa followed his line of sight. Through the archway overhanging the tram tracks, he could just make out the forms of Roxas' friends – Hayner, Pence, and Olette – running in the direction of the tunnels. They were carrying butterfly nets, and blue bats that Isa had come to learn were the weapon of choice in the local Struggle matches. He watched them until they disappeared from sight, and then let his attention return to Roxas.

Roxas met his gaze evenly, visibly confused and still waiting for an answer. Isa didn't know what to tell him.

"Why don't you ask them?" he settled on.

Roxas made the same grimace he had when Isa had mentioned school, and hurried to close the distance between them. "Axel and Xion are waiting," he said brusquely, and hurried towards Market Street.

"Did you get into an argument with them?" Isa guessed. What else could the issue be? It didn't explain why he'd been hanging around Isa like a shadow, but it would provide some insight into why he seemed to be avoiding them.

But Roxas simply shook his head.

* * *

Lea and Xion were curled up on the couch by the time they made it back, a blanket tucked around them as they scrolled through a list of movies offered by the local streaming service.

"It was fun," Xion was saying. "They said I should sign up for the tournament."

"Are you going to?" Lea asked, still flicking through the options.

"I think so. Will you come watch?"

"Obviously. I'm not gonna miss watching you beat up all your friends with a plastic bat."

They both looked up as Isa and Roxas entered the room, faces brightening at the sight of the plastic bags of takeout containers. Isa took his usual place on the far end beside Lea, and started handing out the meals.

"Are you going to sign up for the Struggle thing, too?" Lea asked Roxas as he took the handful of plastic forks Isa had given him, and passed one to Xion.

Roxas blinked at him. "No."

Isa handed him a container. There was still a gap on Xion's other side where they'd saved him a spot, but instead of taking it, Roxas loitered indecisively before lightly kicking Isa in the leg.

"Move over," he said.

Isa raised a brow. He couldn't get any closer to the arm rest than he already was. If he wanted to sit next to Lea, then it wasn't Isa who was going to have to move.

Xion, as if reading his mind, slid down to the other armrest, and Lea quickly scooted after her. Roxas sat down, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Isa, leaving a noticeable gap between himself and Lea. Isa met Lea's bewildered eye above Roxas' head.

At least he wasn't the only one who had no idea what was going on.

* * *

"Do you think Roxas is avoiding me?"

Isa, leaning against the headboard of his bed, glanced over the edge of his book to watch Lea flop down over his legs. If he hadn't looked so pitiful, he would have given in to the urge to kick him off. Instead, he set the book on his nightstand, and said,

"I'm sure I wouldn't know." He'd seen very little of Lea over the last few days, given how busy job hunting and preparing for the children's schooling had kept him. The children had also been spending more time than usual with their other friends, no doubt wishing to make the most of the remaining time before their vacation ended.

"The other day he flinched when he saw me in the hallway," Lea continued.

Unusual behaviour for Roxas, who didn't startle easily after so many fights with the Heartless. Then again, 'unusual behaviour' had become something of the norm recently, hadn't it? "Did you have a fight?"

Lea rolled onto his side so they were facing each other. "Not that I can think of?"

"Then I very much doubt it has anything to do with you. He's been acting strangely all week. Even when you're not here, he's been rather... clingy."

A heavy frown settled on Lea's face. It was a picture of the confusion Isa had long been dealing with. "Clingy how?"

"He's been returning home early without explanation, and seems to prefer my company over that of people he actually likes," Isa explained.

"He does like you, Isa," Lea said with the patience of someone who was repeating themself for the thousandth time. Isa thought it was rather unwarranted.

He raised a disbelieving brow.

"Okay, well he's _warming up_ to you, then."

"Today we did the dishes together, and then the rest of the housework. At _his_ request."

"Yeah, okay, something is definitely not right here."

He wondered if this is what it had been like for Axel in those early days, before he'd inevitably gotten attached. Isa was sure, though, that whatever the case, he did not enjoy being followed around anywhere near as much as Lea did. Or at all, if he was honest. If it was a sign that Roxas was willing to put the past behind them the way Xion had, then perhaps it would be tolerable. But his contradictory attitude had made it very clear that that was not the case.

"Has he said anything to you?" Lea asked then.

"Nothing relevant," Isa said. And not for wont of trying, either. He had clearly gotten his stubbornness from Sora.

Lea hummed unhappily. Isa would suggest that he try talking to Roxas himself, given the greater likelihood of success, but if Roxas really was avoiding him, that wasn't going to work.

He thought back on their interactions over the last couple of days, trying to come up with anything that could be a clue to the problem. He'd been avoidant when Isa had suggested he go join his friends, and he'd had the same expression when...

"He seemed uncomfortable when I mentioned the preparations for their schooling," Isa reported. "And didn't want to interact with his other friends."

"Why would...?" Lea trailed off. For a long moment he stared down at Isa's blanket. If he didn't know the control he wielded over his element, Isa might have been worried that he'd set it on fire with his gaze alone. Then, without warning, his face slackened with realisation. "Oh."

"Oh?"

Lea sat up, one leg dangling over the side of the bed. He ran a hand down his face, his expression morphing into simmering anger. "If I didn't have, like, morals now, I'd burn that bastard till not even the ashes were left," he hissed.

Isa stared at him. For a moment, it was as if he'd become Axel again. But when he finally turned back to Isa, the ferocity had muted to something slightly calmer.

"How many days are left until the new term starts?"

Isa had no idea what this had to do with anything, but, "Three. They'll likely need to spend the entirety of the first semester in tutoring, and then enrol in school for the second semester."

"And when did the weird behaviour start?"

The first time Isa had noticed it had been... "Four days ago."

"Seven days."

"A week, yes," Isa agreed, still lost.

"The digital Twilight Town," Lea shook his head. "They locked him up in there for the last seven days of summer vacation. I'd bet munny this is a PTSD thing."

Then the 'bastard' Lea had been referring to was most likely Ansem the Wise. Isa supposed it made sense; Roxas had been growing increasingly on-edge and clingy the longer the week dragged on, and had been avoidant of almost everyone except Isa. It did not explain why he'd latched onto Isa specifically, however.

"Who knows?" Lea mused when he voiced his confusion. "Does it really matter?"

It very well might, but Isa would concede that right in that moment it didn't. What mattered now was what they were going to do about it.

"Take him off-world for the next few days," Lea said, not looking at him. "Make an excuse if you have to. It'll probably be easier for him if he's not in Twilight Town."

"I have to finish the preparations for their tutoring. Ienzo is expecting me." And wouldn't it be better for Roxas to go with someone he actually liked? Lea, for instance? Isa couldn't see how being stuck with him for three days would do anything to help Roxas.

"I can handle that," Lea immediately countered. "I'll even take Xion with me. We can go back to that fountain she likes."

"And where do you suggest I take him?"

"I dunno. Anywhere that isn't the Islands or the Garden. And don't go anywhere near Sora."

Isa wondered if avoiding Sora was to Roxas' benefit or Lea's. Saïx had known that Roxas had ultimately returned to Sora after Axel's failure to recapture him, and if this really was PTSD related, seeing Sora now would only exacerbate the problem. But Axel had become very attached to Roxas over the year he'd been in the Organization – had given his life in the pursuit of getting him back, even. It was hard to imagine there wasn't some lingering distress at the thought of them being anywhere near each other normally, let alone when Roxas was like this.

And on that note, this would be the first time either of the children had been away from Lea for more than a day since they'd gotten their hearts back. He'd become less anxious about separation the longer time drew on without incident, but it had still only been just over a month. Three days apart, even with the knowledge that they were both safe, was going to be difficult.

_What about you,_ Isa wanted to ask. But he already knew the answer. And Lea waved away any concerns before he could form them with a declaration that he was going to bed.

* * *

They announced their intentions over breakfast. Lea had gotten up significantly earlier than usual, and though he didn't say anything, Isa knew it was because he didn't want to miss the chance to see them off. Regardless that Isa would not have left until he did.

Both Roxas and Xion knew something was going on. As Lea had said, they were far from stupid, and Lea pouring all of them a bowl of coco puffs without a single complaint from Isa was more than enough to tip them off.

Xion eyed Isa carefully as she took her first bite, as if waiting for the moment he would chastise her. When he didn't, she side-eyed Roxas, who merely shrugged and shared none of her hesitancy.

"What's going on?" she asked, setting her spoon down.

Lea and Isa turned to each other.

_Are you going to tell them or should I?_

"Um," Lea started awkwardly. "So, uh, I need to go to Radiant Garden today. To see Ienzo."

Roxas and Xion frowned. "Okay?"

"And I figured we could stop at Fountain Court on the way, Xi, if you wanted to come."

Xion brightened at the prospect. "Okay!" But then the frown was back, and she glanced over at Roxas again. "What about Roxas?"

Isa watched as Lea's expression grew conflicted. As he'd thought, this was harder for Lea than he was letting on. And Roxas and Xion were picking up on his unease.

"I will be heading to a world called Prydain for the next few days on an errand," he cut in, sparing Lea from having to break the news. "Roxas, your help would be appreciated."

He'd expected disinterest, at the very least. Perhaps even an argument. He had not expected a complete lack of hesitance.

"What's the errand?" Roxas asked.

Isa had spent at least an hour after Lea had gone to bed planning it all out: where they were going, what excuse he was going to give, how they would fill three days... In the end, he'd settled on the most obscure place he could think of – a world called Prydain that the Organization had known of but never utilised. And for the excuse,

"There is a rare herb that only grows there. Scrooge McDuck mentioned a desire to add a new recipe to his restaurant that requires it, and is willing to offer considerable reimbursement to anyone able to locate it."

It was no secret that the job hunting had been unsuccessful so far, or that Isa, at least, was concerned about their finances. And Roxas was unlikely to talk to Scrooge at all, let alone bother to fact check.

"Like a mission, right?"

More like the sort of mission that Saïx would occasionally assign to Demyx, but Roxas didn't need to know that. "I suppose."

"Okay," he shrugged.

And that was that.

Isa had thought breaking the news would be the hard part. That is, until it came time to actually leave. Roxas and Xion shared none of Lea's anxiety, but they were empathetic enough that his attempts at concealing it didn't work in the least.

"Is he okay?" Xion whispered to him as Lea drew the hug out longer than strictly necessary. Roxas, at least, didn't seem to mind.

Isa slung the backpack he had prepared over his shoulder. "He has separation anxiety."

"Oh." Xion fidgeted. "Maybe we should go together, then."

"Time will not allow for that," Isa shook his head. "Stay with him, and he'll be fine."

Finally, Lea let Roxas go, giving Xion the opportunity to say her own goodbye.

"I'll take care of him," Isa promised, when Lea came to stand beside him.

"I know," Lea said. "He'll take care of you, too."

Which was probably true. Isa had only summoned his claymore once since he got his heart back, and without the intention of using it, but Saïx had certainly not been a push over. Still, in terms of raw power, Roxas well and truly eclipsed him. But what Isa might comparatively lack in fighting prowess, he made up for in maturity and experience.

"We'll call tonight to check in."

"You'd better." Lea pulled him into a hug that Isa, surprised, took a second too long to reciprocate. "Don't die on me again."

Isa was fairly certain they had nothing to fear from the locals of Prydain. If, for whatever reason, things got even slightly out of hand, all they had to do was open a corridor to somewhere else.

"I don't intend to."

* * *

Prydain was something of a primitive world, compared to some Isa had seen. Similar to the Kingdom of Corona, Enchanted Dominion, and Dwarf Woodlands, there was nothing in the way of electronic technology, but the locals made up for it with clever inventions that well suited their way of life.

They exited the corridor into a secluded alley of a town. There was a castle looming in the distance. It was likely, then, that this world utilised some type of feudal system. Their first step, he decided upon seeing the locals bustling about their lives, was to find some clothes. Their current ones, while well-suited to Twilight Town, would make them stand out here.

"There's no rare herb, is there?" Roxas asked before he had the chance to inform him of the plan.

Isa looked down at him. Roxas met his gaze evenly. If he was annoyed by the deception, he didn't show it. If anything, he only looked confused. Maybe it wasn't too late to play dumb. "What do you mean?"

"Even if it did take three days to find a plant, there's no reason we wouldn't be able to go home at night." Hm. Definitely smarter than Isa had given him credit for. "And Mr McDuck posts all his odd jobs on the bulletin board. I've never seen anything about finding ingredients."

Isa sighed. Well, that had been short-lived. "No, we're not here to find a herb."

Roxas nodded. He'd already known the answer. "Then why _are_ we here?"

Isa retreated further into the alley, where there was less chance of them being overheard. "Because this is an unfamiliar world, and no one knows us here."

If Roxas had had any ideas about the real reason for their trip, it was clear from the way he frowned that this was not it. "What?"

"Would you rather we return to Twilight Town?" Despite what Lea said, and despite that Isa agreed with him, in the end it was ultimately Roxas' decision. And no one would know what was best for him better than himself.

Roxas' attention slid over to the mouth of the alley, where they could hear the chatter of what was probably a market. He heaved a sigh. "We're here cause of me, aren't we? You noticed."

"It was admittedly difficult not to."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologise," Isa immediately retorted, and Roxas looked up at him again in surprise. "It's not your fault, and I wouldn't be here unless I wanted to be. If anything, I should be the one apologising. I know I'm the last person you would want to be stuck with."

That strange, contorted expression was back. Isa had as much luck identifying it now as he had the last few times. "But you hate me?"

Isa stared at him. "I don't hate you."

Roxas very clearly did not believe him.

"My behaviour as Saïx was derived from personal issues, not because of anything you or Xion had done," Isa said, turning away. "I apologise."

When the silence drew on uncomfortably long, he dared to look back to Roxas. He was watching him, still with that same unreadable expression. "Huh," he said.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Okay. He supposed it was better than the reaction he'd been expecting. "May I ask you something?"

Roxas eyed him dubiously. "What?"

"Why me?"

He thought, for a moment, that he would need to explain himself better. But Roxas, suddenly avoidant, crossed his arms defensively, and Isa knew that it would not be necessary. "It helps."

"Helps?"

"You weren't there," Roxas confessed, like it was a terrible secret.

He wasn't there? What did that...? Ah. The digital Twilight Town was the cause of all this, which Roxas had only confirmed. Saïx had never been to that town. The closest he'd gotten was sending Axel on the Organization's behalf. Which, in hindsight, might be why Roxas had been avoiding Lea.

"A lot of things have been happening that also happened then," Roxas continued when Isa didn't speak. "But you weren't there. So you're like... a reminder that it's not happening again?"

Proof that his life wasn't a simulation.

"I keep thinking that I'm... that at the end of the week, instead of school starting, I'm just going to..."

Disappear, back to Sora. Like before.

And that was, perhaps, why he'd chosen Isa over Xion, despite her not having been there either. The memories of her destruction and subsequent return to Sora were no doubt still fresh in his mind.

"But then I run into you, and it... helps."

"I'm sure it goes without saying that we would not allow a repeat incident," Isa said. "But I understand that anxiety is rarely logical."

Roxas nodded, clearly uncomfortable, eyes suspiciously wet. "I know."

"Since we're here, we might as well explore the town," Isa, taking pity on him, changed the subject. "Unless there is somewhere else you would prefer to go."

Something changed on Roxas' face, and Isa immediately knew he was going to regret the suggestion.

"You didn't come with us to Neverland the other day," he said slowly.

Oh no.

"I was preoccupied with other things."

"You missed out on _flying!_"

"There was no regret on my part," Isa tried, but Roxas was already opening a corridor. He supposed the regret he was feeling _now_ was more than enough to make up for its earlier absence.

At least he wouldn't have to spend three days looking for herbs.


End file.
